Makes sense. How would one expect the V500 to fare, perhaps running Silverfast software (from what I gather that's the best scanning software on the market?)?

You can download the Silverfast demo and try before you buy. The higher-end Silverfast versions have some nice features, but the user interface coupled with the high price led me to pass on the purchase. FWIW, I have found that Epson Scan works pretty well for my purposes. Next in line would be VueScan.

The rational for scanning at higher resolution and size reduction by a factor of 2 for scanners that really don't have true scanning resolutions they claim is that maybe their true resolution is a bit higher than 2400dpi and by down sampling you can capture part of the higher resolution without the expense of the larger file size. You have nothing to lose by trying it and potentially more to gain.

The rational for scanning at higher resolution and size reduction by a factor of 2 for scanners that really don't have true scanning resolutions they claim is that maybe their true resolution is a bit higher than 2400dpi and by down sampling you can capture part of the higher resolution without the expense of the larger file size. You have nothing to lose by trying it and potentially more to gain.

Thanks for chiming in again. I figured the rational went something like that, but I have limited personal experience with that approach.

I haven't done any testing to compare the difference apart from seeing the results. I currently employ that method with my 9000ED scans with 8 samples and fine mode. The 9000ED is suppose to have a true resolution near 4000dpi so I scan at that and size reduce by 2 to get a file size of a 2000dpi scan. I use to scan at 4000dpi but, man, those file sizes start to tax the image editing software.

You can download the Silverfast demo and try before you buy. The higher-end Silverfast versions have some nice features, but the user interface coupled with the high price led me to pass on the purchase. FWIW, I have found that Epson Scan works pretty well for my purposes. Next in line would be VueScan.

Steve

It seems Silverfast SE with multiexposure and multipass scanning (as well as a bunch of other stuff) actually only comes in at a little over $100, so I think I'll probably be willing to drop that much on it. But I definitely will try before I buy, as you advise.

be mindful to turn of Digital ICE when scanning black and white images, ICE uses infra-red to remove dust and scratches in the final scan. due to the composition of B&W films they are largely opaque in the IR spectrum,with the exception being Kodak CN400 and Ilford XP2, because they are dye films.

My experience with the Epson V700 and the wet scanning attachment have provided me with extremely good results with 8X10 and 4X5. though not as good as a profession Drum scan which I occasionally get done, the 8X10 drum scanned images I get are comparable to a 210MP Digital Sensor. However, with the V700 you have to adjust the height of the negative carrier to optimise sharpness, out o the box- the negative carriers are typically maladjusted. I can only assume the V500 has a similar set up.

be mindful to turn of Digital ICE when scanning black and white images, ICE uses infra-red to remove dust and scratches in the final scan. due to the composition of B&W films they are largely opaque in the IR spectrum,with the exception being Kodak CN400 and Ilford XP2, because they are dye films.

My experience with the Epson V700 and the wet scanning attachment have provided me with extremely good results with 8X10 and 4X5. though not as good as a profession Drum scan which I occasionally get done, the 8X10 drum scanned images I get are comparable to a 210MP Digital Sensor. However, with the V700 you have to adjust the height of the negative carrier to optimise sharpness, out o the box- the negative carriers are typically maladjusted. I can only assume the V500 has a similar set up.

Kodak BW400CN is my favorite film. I'll definitely be picking up as much as I can on ebay, as it seems to be discontinued in 120 format.

I noticed that there are some adjustable-height 3rd-party negative carriers available to take care of that issue. Are the supplied carriers themselves adjustable for optimal height?

Kodak BW400CN is my favorite film. I'll definitely be picking up as much as I can on ebay, as it seems to be discontinued in 120 format.

I noticed that there are some adjustable-height 3rd-party negative carriers available to take care of that issue. Are the supplied carriers themselves adjustable for optimal height?

The V700/V750 versions have three positions. I don't know about the V500. It may be in the V500 manual. The 3rd-party solution you are thinking of is probably the one from BetterScanning.com. The link to their V500 page is below:

Conventional wisdom and my personal experience with the V700 is that there is little to be gained by scanning at greater than 2400 dpi. The optical resolution simply is not there regardless of manufacturer claims. That being said, I respect Tuco's results and if he sees a benefit to scanning high and down-sampling, I have to accept that it might be worth doing.

I too respect Tuco's scans, but at 4800dpi it takes more than twice the time than at 2400dpi.
I have all my older films to scan, I need nearly an hour to scan a whole film...

I'm undecided about the benefits of scanning at a higher resolution than 2400 with the Epson scanners (V750 in my case). On the one hand, as Tuco says, you've got nothing to lose. On the other hand, close comparisons yield little difference. Newer scanners are faster enough that the time difference is neither here nor there.

I don't like multi-sampling on the V750 - the alignment of the different passes is poor, plus it takes forever! On my Konica-Minolta Dimage, however, it works well and reduces noise considerably.

In general, the results I can obtain with the V750, especially from negatives, are comparable to those from the K-M, except for the presence of some chromatic aberration on the Epson, which is mostly fixable in post (I use ACR). I have not noticed undue blooming or ghosting with the images I have scanned, although if you go looking for it, you may find it.